FBI CURBED IN FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710026-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: July 2, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710026-2
TI E 1 ,-
ON PAGGE
WASHINGTON POST
2 July 1985
FBI Curbed in Fight
Against Terrorists
White House Limit on Funding Noted
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington West Staff Writer
The FBI has been trying to ex-
pan its counterterrorist forces
since last year but has been turned
down twice by the White House,
according to a member of the Sen-
ate Select Committee on intelli-
gence.
Si-n. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) said
he learned of the budgetary lid as a
result of his inquiries about the ad-
equacy of the bureau's resources.
"It's one of the most foolish
things I've seen since I've been up
here," Bentsen said. "Here you have
terrorism on an increase around the
world, and you know it's going to
increase in the United States and
we must fight it."
According to figures compiled by
Bentsen and his staff and verified by
other sources, the FBI had been
seeking an $11 million increase
over last year's $39.5 million coun-
terterrorism budget to pay for 191
more agents, support personnel and
related expenses.
The biggest chunk of the addi-
tional appropriation, about $5.7 mil-
lion, would have been used to ex-
pand FBI counterterrorism task
forces set up with local police in
Boston, New York, Chicago and
Washington since 1980 and to es-
tablish new ones in Newark, Los
Angeles and San Francisco.
The rest of the money would
have been devoted to strengthening
the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue
Team, now said to have about 50
agents, and broadening the scope of
the five-year-old National Terror-
ism Research and Analyis Center
based here.
The White House Office of Man-
agement and Budget rejected the
proposals last fall in trimming a sup-
plemental budget request for fiscal
1985 and again this year in ruling
on the 1986 budget proposal before
Congress.
Voicing alarm in a weekly video-
taped report to Texas constituents,
Bentsen said he regards the frugal-
ity as "just counterproductive" and
said he would introduce legislation
to put that $11 million back."
Bentsen's press secretary, , Jack
DeVore, said the B imite the
PDT counterterrorism budget to
$39.8 milfidii, a 1.1 percent in-
crease in a year when, according to
OMB projections, inflation is ex-
pected to be 4.4 percent.
DeVore said Bentsen learned
about t e $11 million trim in asking
about the 's resources to co
71t h such counterintelligence prob-
W_
lems as t e a e e a cer spy ring.
e- sai Bentsen was told ME the
counterinte igence u get was in
good sha but that the counterter-
rorism program face constraints.
OMB spokesman Edwin L. Dale
Jr. declined to comment. "We don't
discuss decisions made back at bud-
get time," he said.
The FBI declined to voice public
chagrin. Spokesman Tony Genakos
said FBI Director William H. Web-
ster is "supportive of the adminis-
tration's request to Congress for
fiscal 1986 in connection with our
terrorist activity, and we're also
grateful for the support we've re-
ceived from the administration and
Congress in combating terrorist
operations."
Bentsen aide Jim Currie said,
however, that the extra $11 million
would "give the FBI greater ability
to deal with domestic hijackings and
hostage situations, to identify ter-
rorist groups that are an outgrowth
of or have an affiliation with foreign
governments or movements and to
be in a position to tell who these
groups are affiliated with, where
they are in the United States and
what they are doing and planning to
do."
The FBI's hostage rescue team
was established in January 1983
and, Genakos said, is "a cohesive
unit able to respond to highly so-
phisticated hostage situations. If
gives the president and the attor-
ney general a viable law enf tce-
ment alternative to the use of a mil-
itary group for the resolution of a
domestic incident." -
The terrorism task forces, start:
ing with that established in New
York in April 1980, are teams of.
FBI agents and local police, usually
housed in FBI quarters and de-
signed "to make the most use of all
the laws available" in concurrent
investigations of terrorist crimes,
plots and threats.
The Terrorism Research Center
has been operated here since 1980
and consists of a computerized data
bank that compiles information on
known active terrorists in the Unit-
ed States and tries to determine
"the potential threat of further ter?
rorist activity," Genakos said. It is .
directly linked to most FBI field.
offices.
Bentsen is expected to offer an.
amendment giving the FBI the ad::
ditional $11 million and, Devore
said, will probably try to attach it to,
"the first handy appropriations bill:
that comes down the pike."
Little opposition is expected,
"This may well be one of the easiest
legislative victories in the history of
man," DeVore said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403710026-2